We have put up more teasers from our forthcoming Yangon Architectural Guide on our Tumblr and our Facebook pages. Herewith some of the highlights.
Balthazar’s Building (1905)
Category Archives: History
Yangon Facebook/Tumblr
To kick off the crowdsourcing aspect of our Yangon Architecture Guide, we launched Tumblr and Facebook pages. We are initially featuring some of the lesser-known buildings, and have already received great comments from from an extremely gracious generous gentleman called Harry Hpone Thant. I paste some examples below the jump.
Thein Gyi Market
Eurasianism 2005 and 2014
Courtesy of my friend Chris, I found this old blog post of mine dating back to 2005. In it I discuss Eurasianism, an ill-defined school of thought in post-Soviet Russian social science. Amid events in the Ukraine it feels strangely up-to-date today. I repost in full after the jump.
Zenkov Cathedral – Almaty/Kazakhstan (2005)
Yangon Architectural Guide
This blog has allowed me to structure my explorations of the past one and a half years. One particular project originated from these and is now taking up more and more of my time: My friend and photographer Manuel Oka and I are currently working on an architectural guide to Yangon.
Update 20 May 2014: My close friend Elliott Fox has agreed to come onboard to help write and edit the book. Elliott has travelled to Myanmar on numerous occasions both professionally and personally.
Strand Hotel – photo by Manuel Oka
1964 New York World’s Fair
Fifty years ago, the 1964/1965 World’s Fair in New York opened its gates. The event marked the final culmination of Robert Moses’s long career. The event wasn’t sanctioned by the Bureau of International Exhibitions and thus lacked the international allure of other Expos. I visited the area on Tuesday.
The New York State Pavilion
Afrofuturism
Living in Harlem has offered the great chance to connect with black culture. This involved reading up on the district’s vibrant twentieth-century history as well as visiting the local Studio Museum on 125th Street a few times. Here, a recent exhibition on Afrofuturism was a highlight.
Tumblr update
My Tumblr on postwar Japan has managed to attract 1,100 followers since I started it half year ago or so. It’s become the place for me to put up close to 1,000 pictures of everything from architecture, documentary photography, advertisements to a growing collection of shinkansen paraphernalia that I find during my research. A project for the future is better categorisation; this would allow me to curate mini-exhibitions on certain architects, areas or urban experiences.
Spectacle nation-building: Expo ’70
In the second part of this short series on Japanese post-war nation-building and national identity, I will revisit the 1970 World Exhibition in Osaka, short “Expo ’70”. Just as with the Olympics six years before in Tokyo, the Expo gave a newly confident Japan a stage to present itself to the world and, more importantly, its own citizens.
View of the Expo grounds, with danchi housing estate in the front
1960s Tokyo photos
In 2013 Kyodo opened its archives for an exhibition showcasing Tokyo photos from the 1960s mainly. By juxtaposing them with shots from the same angle today, the incredible transformation of Tokyo over the decades becomes visible. I stumbled over its website where many of works can be seen. A small selection with links to posts from this blog after the jump.
Spectacle nation-building: 1964 Olympics
The 1964 Tokyo Olympics and the 1970 Osaka Expo were the two mass events that shaped the world’s view of post-war Japan. Within Japan, they also helped to foster a new sense of national identity. And for all the visual prowess these events commanded and progress they reflected, there was a darker side to them. I will begin by looking at the 1964 Olympics.
Yoyogi National Gymnasium (Kenzo Tange) – 1964